XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 04/05/11

Tuesday, 5 April 2011

Mobile home on sale for $1.2m - ONE bedroom mobile home has gone on sale in star-studded Malibu -

A ONE bedroom mobile home has gone on sale in star-studded Malibu for a staggering £1.2MILLION.
The tiny pad sits sandwiched between huge luxury properties and famous neighbours include Cher, Barbara Streisand, Pamela Anderson and Minnie Driver.

It boasts breath-taking views of Point Dume State Beach in Malibu, California, and is kitted out with a high-tech kitchen, living room and Jacuzzi
The home, in the ultra exclusive Point Dume Club mobile park, is situated just minutes away from world famous Zuma beach — where Baywatch was filmed.

Pamela Anderson, who starred in the series, is still reportedly living in a one-bedroom trailer of her own nearby.
Estate agent Michael Gardner, who specialises in property in Malibu, said: "This is probably one of the most expensive mobile homes in the world.

"It's between one property worth £34million and another worth about £12million.

"It's quite clearly situated very close to some of the world's most expensive real estate."

Mr Gardner added: "They don't look very mobile because the rules allow you to remodel a mobile home using traditional building techniques.

"The only rule is that somewhere underneath, the chassis and axle need to be in place.

"So they basically build around a portion of the mobile home. "

Read more - http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3510272/Mobile-home-on-sale-for-12m.html

NUCLEAR SUSHI? - radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility -

The operator of Japan's stricken Fukushima nuclear plant said Tuesday that it had found radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times the legal limit in a seawater sample taken near the facility, and government officials imposed a new health limit for radioactivity in fish.

The reading of iodine-131 was recorded Saturday, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said. Another sample taken Monday found the level to be 5 million times the legal limit. The Monday samples also were found to contain radioactive cesium at 1.1 million times the legal limit.

The exact source of the radiation was not immediately clear, though Tepco has said that highly contaminated water has been leaking from a pit near the No. 2 reactor. The utility initially believed that the leak was coming from a crack, but several attempts to seal the crack failed.

On Tuesday the company said the leak instead might be coming from a faulty joint where the pit meets a duct, allowing radioactive water to seep into a layer of gravel underneath. The utility said it would inject "liquid glass" into gravel in an effort to stop further leakage.

Meanwhile, Tepco continued releasing what it described as water contaminated with low levels of radiation into the sea to make room in on-site storage tanks for more highly contaminated water. In all, the company said it planned to release 11,500 tons of the water, but by Tuesday morning it had released less than 25% of that amount.

Although the government authorized the release of the 11,500 tons and has said that any radiation would be quickly diluted and dispersed in the ocean, fish with high readings of iodine are being found.

On Monday, officials detected more than 4,000 bequerels of iodine-131 per kilogram in a type of fish called a sand lance caught less than three miles offshore of the town of Kita-Ibaraki. The young fish also contained 447 bequerels of cesium-137, which is considered more problematic than iodine-131 because it has a much longer half-life.

On Tuesday chief cabinet secretary Yukio Edano said the government was imposing a standard of 2,000 bequerels of iodine per kilogram of fish, the same level it allows in vegetables. Previously, the government did not have a specific level for fish. Another haul of sand lance with 526 bequerels of cesium was detected Tuesday, in excess of the standard of 500 bequerels per kilogram.

Fishing of sand lances has been suspended. Local fishermen called on Tepco to halt the release of radioactive water into the sea and demanded that the company compensate them for their losses.

Read more - http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-japan-nuclear-20110406,0,2697428.story